How to Save Money if You're a Complete Idiot, Part II

You guys might remember the last time I addressed this topic:  http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/how-to-save-money-if-you-are-complete-and-total-idiot/    When Yahoo.news for Imbeciles shared such valuable financial savings tips for these tough economic times as Don’t paint your house exterior every year, and useful advice like Don’t serve Lobster Tails at every family gathering.  Basically, it was fiscal advice from really dumb people. I’m talking so astoundingly dumb that when they take medication that says to avoid operating complex machinery, they’re scared to tie their shoelaces.  I thought it was possibly the dumbest financial article ever published (not using crayon).

That was until this morning, when my wife had to show me this one… Oh. My. Hell. This one really ticked me off.

Allow me to present: FORECLOSURE LIMBO:  STAYING WITHOUT PAYING  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Foreclosure-limbo-Staying-cnnm-989137852.html?x=0  

A theme that I’ve seen lately is that these articles always want to make the readers feel sorry for people who make stupid choices. This one absolutely takes the cake. As usual, the original article is in italics and my commentary is in bold.

Charles and Jill Segal have not made a mortgage payment in nearly five years — but they continue to live in their five-bedroom West Palm Beach, Fla. home. Sweet! 

Lynn, from St. Petersburg, Florida, has been living without paying for three years. Man, I wish! Did these people win a contest from HGTV or something?

In Thousand Oaks, California, an actor has missed 30 payments, and still, he has not lost his home. Huh? How do they accomplish this miraculous feat?

They’re not alone.

Some 4.2 million mortgage borrowers are either seriously delinquent or have had their cases referred to lawyers to pursue foreclosure auctions, according to LPS Applied Analytics. Of those, two-thirds have made no payments at all for at least a year, and nearly one-third have gone more than two years. Yep. Sad… But wait for it…

These cases can go on and on. Nationwide, it takes an average of 565 days to foreclose on borrowers in default from their first missed payments to the final auction. In New York, the average is 800 days and in Florida, where the “robo-signing” issue is particularly combative, it’s 807. Wait, you mean that I can be an irresponsible ass and live for free in somebody’s property for years? 

If they want to fight evictions hard, borrowers can remain in their homes even longer while their cases are being worked through. And now the article spins these sacks of crap as the HEROES.

The Segals have been doing that — in court. They bought their home in 2003 with an adjustable rate mortgage. Because that’s always a fine idea. After a few years, their monthly payments tripled to $3,000, Dur…  just as their home-inspection business was cratering.

The Segals want the bank to modify the mortgage so payments are affordable, and they think the court will agree that their lender put them into a toxic loan. Let’s see… Hey, I’m going to give you a loan, and it has itty bitty payments up front, but a few years from now, I’m going to anally violate you with a garden weasel and your payments are going to jump a thousand percent! SWEET! Where do I sign?

“The evidence will show that we were defrauded,” said Jill Segal. The evidence will show that you’re not very good at math and that’s about it.

If they lose, of course, they’ll finally have to leave. And, unfortunately, more than 50 months of missed mortgage payments hasn’t translated into big savings. How? How can 50 months without a house or rent payment not translate into savings? You basically got out of your biggest single expense for nearly five years.

“It’s very hard to save,” said Jill Segal. Who is an idiot. “Our company’s billing is 90% off and my husband is only working about four days a week.” Then he should go do something other than the crappy business he started. And that is coming from somebody who has been a small businessman that had to sell his company. I was unemployed after selling my business back in 2008, and I was a highly skilled and educated accountant applying for jobs driving bread trucks. Cry me a river.

Deal with it. That’s what most normal people do when life gets hard, Jill. Put on your big girl panties and get a different job. It didn’t matter what my skill sets were, or what lifestyle I was accustomed to. It didn’t matter that I’m talented, experienced, with all sorts of certs, had run a company, or that I should be making X number of dollars. I interviewed to drive a delivery truck, and I was thankful for the opportunity.

In the last 50 months, I sold a business, was out of work for half a year (never collected unemployment and lived off of savings and food storage, which I’m sure is an alien concept to the folks in this article), then found a job. That company grew from 50 employees to 200, and I went from the only accountant to the finance manager of a company that is now one of the top 100 most successful businesses in this state. Oh, and during those 50 months, I also wrote 5 more books, became a bestseller, got contracts to write 10 other books, sold the rights to a TV show, sold a house, moved, built a house, moved again, and have generally worked hard and gotten on with life.

All while you’ve been living for free… Crying about your circumstances.  SO SHUT UP.   

Lynn, who didn’t want her last name used, purchased a two-bedroom on Tampa Bay in 1998 for $135,000.

As the waterfront property’s value skyrocketed, eventually reaching $750,000, she refinanced twice (once to expand a business), and took out a second mortgage. She now owes more than $600,000 on the home, which is worth only $235,000. You know, people really should talk to somebody that works at a financial organization before making those kinds of decisions…

Living in this foreclosure limbo is “Hell,” Lynn said. “I feel like I’m locked in a box. I work for a FINANCIAL ORGANIZATION and if this came out, it could cost me my job.” AAAAAAHHHHH!!! You do what?  

For the record, I capitalized financial organization there… because, well, duh, Lynn. You work in a financial organization. Lift your lazy ass out of your cube, walk to the nearest accountant and say “Hey, Tom, just between you and me, do you think it is a good idea to refinance my house twice so that I owe three times its value and then just cross my fingers and hope that unicorns slide down a magic rainbow to give me sacks of money?” And then Tom would have stabbed you in the neck with his staple remover because you’re just too willfully ignorant to live, and thus saved us the trouble of reading this pity-fest article.  

She’s still hoping to negotiate the loan. In the meantime, small things bother her. “A couple years ago, I lost my dog and I can’t decide on getting a new one,” she said. If she has to move, she can’t be sure she’ll go somewhere that allows pets. I haven’t paid rent for five years, but I can’t have a puppy. I’m sooooooo sad.

Mr Snuggles ran away because of Lynn's poor budgeting choices

 

The actor from Thousand Oaks, Calif. began having problems during the screenwriters’ strike in late 2007, followed by a threat of a strike by the Screen Actors Guild.

He’s working with his lender toward a mortgage modification, submitting page after page of documents, which the bank has often misplaced or waited so long to examine them that they had grown too old to use. Page after page… It is just soooo hard for these people. Because the rest of us have never had to deal with things like paperwork or bureaucracy. Wait a second… I deal with paperwork and bureaucracy every single day in order to pay my mortgage too! I’m totally getting ripped off.

His ideal outcome is get the loan modified and get all his late fees waived. My ideal outcome involves world domination and all you can eat ice cream. He feels ENTITLED to that because the bank advised him to stopped paying in the first place to qualify for one of the government’s foreclosure programs. Before that, he had missed only one payment. I capitalized entitled, because I think that sums up the whole thing.

Meanwhile, he has cobbled together some income streams — small acting parts, teaching acting classes and even handyman work. Yes, because an aspiring actor has never had to go be a waiter before, ever. He’s just waiting for his Big Break, and then everything will be swell!

“In a way, I feel like I’m lucky because I haven’t had to pay any ‘rent’ for 30 months,” he said. In a way? IN A WAY? You no good, rotten, lazy sack of crap. You haven’t paid rent for two and half years, and you feel LUCKY IN A WAY?!

But he feels like he’s always under a cloud. “I haven’t slept in three years,” he said. “It’s terrifying. I have to have the ultimate poker face in front of my kids.” BREAD TRUCK MOTHER ****ER!

Ruben Martinez, a Staten Island, N.Y., man trapped in a particularly bad adjustable rate mortgage, stopped paying more than three years ago. His attorney, Robert K Brown, has managed to stave off one foreclosure. and overthrew a small 3rd world country. (sorry, gun nut inside joke)

Martinez, still struggling to find work, has little in savings despite the missed payments. He’s earning some income as a pastor and consulting for a non-profit family counseling organization. What exactly is he counseling them to do? Scam the banks? Live beyond their means?

“There’s pressure on me every day,” he said. “I have a wife, three daughters and two grandchildren. Where are we going to live?” In a van down by the river for all I care. I know, how about go live someplace you can actually afford. Oh, I’m sorry, is that small apartment not up to the high standards that you are accustomed to? Well too damn bad. The rest of us are sick of bailing you out.

And that is what it all comes down to. The above morons aren’t living for free. Somebody is paying for their free ride. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. All of us that have lived within our means, sacrificed, and worked hard, are paying taxes to idiot politicians that are going to bail out these idiotic financial institutions that were idiotic enough to make loans to these idiots. So how does the news spin it? We’re supposed to feel sad that poor dumb Lynn can’t have a dog. We’re supposed to feel sad that some aspiring actor has to put on a brave face for his kids.

Bull. Crap.

I just mailed a quarterly tax withholding check to the government today for my book royalties. Sure, it was enough to cover several of MY mortgage payments, but I sure hope that the government can use my money and put it toward something useful, like getting Lynn a new puppy.

Luckily most of the comments to the article get it. But then there are people like this:

To all of you with such mean things to say, all I have to say is…. it must be nice to be perfect!

And that one random internet comment sums up so much about what is wrong with our country. I never claimed to be perfect. I claimed to be a grown up.

BOOK BOMB! For all the Lovecraft and Pulp fans especially.
An interview of me on Writing Action

79 thoughts on “How to Save Money if You're a Complete Idiot, Part II”

  1. You really need to learn how to let things out. Don’t bottle up so much. Just tell us how you really feel. 😉

    As for the sentiments, I agree 100%. Everytime I hear someone talk about going after the banks as crooks, I remind them to go after the idiot consumers as co-conspirators.

  2. I fail to see how world domination for you will cure my lactose intolerance so I can have ice cream, but I’m generally speaking in favor of it. Especially if you introducing plans to beat idiots with phone books (probably the only thing phone books get used for anymore) while leaving normal people alone.

  3. Yay you posted on the same article that got me so lit up yesterday that I posted to Facebook about it. I can’t stand when people blame the banks and say “hey it’s totally not my fault I signed up for an ARM interest-only mortgage without reading any of the actual contract”. I mean, were the banks telling these people “oh sure borrow a ton, by the time your payments go up your house will be worth 3x as much and you can just re-fi, free money for everyone!”. I *seriously* doubt that banks were actually selling loans that way, and if they were, let ’em all fail.

    When you remove the consequences from a bad action there is zero incentive for these banks or these consumers to do anything better the next time around.

  4. When we bought our house 11 years ago, the price was $120K for modest 3-2 is South Florida. We refused anything other than a fixed rate mortgage and we were called fools and even more. The Real State Market went bonkers and we actually had an offer for $286K for the house ! It was insane! Many went with adjustable rate and like Larry sayd, they are getting Ass Invaded.
    The stories are much on sob/tears but short on truth. I am willing to bet most of these idiots were trying to roll over the house and make a quick buck but got caught when the bubble went into super nova. I know of a guy making $12 an hour who actually got a loan for a $300K house. I asked him WTF was he thinking and he said he was gonna give it a coat of paint, new landscaping and resell it for $450K. He didn’t and wasn’t even man enough to declare bankruptcy, he just abandoned the house and left the state.

  5. Larry, these idiots drive me nuts. Yes, I got a variable rate loan. But, I made sure I could afford the maximum payments (and generally make it even though my payments have gone down).

    I am tired of twits complaining because they didn’t bother to read the terms of their loans and ask questions like, what will my maximum payment be?

  6. I have never been so amused and angry all at the same time.

    This:

    For the record, I capitalized financial organization there… because, well, duh, Lynn. You work in a financial organization. Lift your lazy ass out of your cube, walk to the nearest accountant and say “Hey, Tom, just between you and me, do you think it is a good idea to refinance my house twice so that I owe three times its value and then just cross my fingers and hope that unicorns slide down a magic rainbow to give me sacks of money?”

    made me laugh so hard I hurt my ribs. 🙂

  7. Although I’m still wondering how the bank thought loaning money to these people was a good idea… it’s never getting any of it back.

    Also, I’m pretty sure my dog would bite me until I came to my senses if I acted as idiotically as Lynn. She should look for a pup from a more fiscally responsible breed.

    1. Well, part of the problem is these banks did it for the ridiculous fees they could earn on it. They put people into the most expensive loans so they could get the a percentage on them. Plus, they knew they could sell the loans bundled in mortgage-backed securities, so they could just pawn off the crappy loans on investors. They could convince the investors the securities were safe because most were backed by Fannie and Freddie.

      It was a horrible mess. Plus, as we heard above, a lot of the borrowers were idiots. Or they thought (or were convinced) that their house would be worth more in the future, and they would sell at a profit and everything would work out a-okay.

      So, greedy idiots. That’s our problem. As always.

      1. More of the problem is that the .gov TOLD the banks to loan that money…find a way, OR ELSE! It’s called the Community Reinvestment Act, and it’s how banks figured out how to comply with the government’s demand that they loan money to people who couldn’t afford loans.
        After that the greed set in, but that’s where it all started.

  8. (Generally) everyone wants to move up. Everyone wants to get better. Be more successful. Bigger house, nicer car, provide more for the kiddos, etc. I am no different.

    None of these idiots is willing to move down. Hey, we’re making $100,000/yr.! Let’s live like it! Hey, no jobbie-job! We’re making $18,000/yr.! F**k it, someone’ll pay for it! Where’s my puppy?

    tweaker

  9. The department of Feducation doesn’t want people to be smart enough to ask questions about anything.

    Congress doesn’t want banks to actually, you know, ask questions of people because, you know that’s racist. Just ask Charlie Rangel.

    The fact that our entire banking system hasn’t collapsed is a minor miracle in its own right.

  10. And they wonder why the crash was so big. People spending money they don’t have and never will have. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.

    I linked to your rant. Hope you don’t mind.

  11. I actually have to remind myself that the people in the article are the stupid ones because here I am paying my bills month after month while they get a free ride and after awhile I get to feeling like I’m the stupid one.

    1. Every successful creature will have parasites who are generally getting an easy ride. The tough job for a parasite not killing your host.

  12. In Lynn’s defense, she didn’t actually say what she DID for that financial organization: “I work for a financial organization” could mean that she’s a drive-up teller at the local bank. It’s kinda like the lunch lady who calls herself a “nutritionist”.

    Folks, let’s face: this country is D-O-N-E. Seriously, I am convinced that the only path forward is the Soviet path, secession and dissolution. The fact is that there are too many people that are too unaware, too innately dumb, and too dumbed-down to even care about the virtues of liberty and republicanism (small “r”). In addition, there are far too many Americans who hope for, and work towards, the establishment of a socialist society in the U.S. Between the apathy, the stupidity, and the outright evil, we can no longer function as a coherent political entity.

    Secession is the answer, the only answer, that can salvage the Foundational American dream (albeit in a much smaller territorial package).

  13. The banks are not innocent victims here. Leaving aside the whole loaning people money that the bank knew they couldn’t pay, because the bank planned to sell the loan as a security before the ink was even dry on the loan paperwork, let’s look at the REAL crime:

    The banks traded, sold, and transferred these loans amongst each other, to the point where many of the loans have no record as to who the home owner owes money to. The paperwork has been lost, so the banks commit perjury, manufacturing and forging the needed paperwork. That is what robosigning is.

    That is what happened to me. I now have three different banks, each of whom claims to own my mortgage. One of them was caught providing false paperwork in court, and was sued by me, ultimately paying me 5 figures. I have no idea who to pay my mortgage to, and if I take a guess and get it wrong, not only does the bank that ultimately owns the loan get to foreclose, but the money that I paid to the wrong bank is also gone. So here I sit in legal limbo, no one knows who owns my mortgage, no one can legally force me to leave, and leaving voluntarily places me in the position, as the owner of the property, of being legally liable for the condition of the property.

    It is easy to oversimplify the issue by screaming “pay your bills, deadbeat” all the while ignoring the entire situation.

    1. Oh, no doubt the banks are stupid. Hence me refering to them as idiots also. However, this article was about trying to get me to feel sympathy for dirtbags, so that’s what my response is aimed at. I could probably write another 2,000 words about the banks, and then 4,000 about the stupid laws that promote that kind of nonsense, but there are only so many hours in the day. 🙂

      If your situation is different, then there is no need to take offense.

      1. The banks weren’t stupid.

        The first thing every Democrat Pres since Carter has done when hitting office is to threaten bank presidents with prison for not submitting to CRA, and making NINJA ( No Income, No Job? Approved! ) loans to poor undesirables.

        They had to do it or go to prison. So they made these loans. Then bundled them into bonds and sold the bonds to suckers like the government of Iceland.

        And now they are having problems foreclosing on these bad loans because they were bundled into these bonds, and now every bondholder ( and subsidiary holder, when a mutual fund buys these bonds! ) needs to be contacted for permission to act in some states.

        Fun fun fun!

      2. Oh, and my wife and I just bought a home in Cheyenne … with cash. And we are both currently unemployed ( Our former home, Oregon, is run by socialist hippies these days ).

        I think you call that a zero percent fixed mortgage …

    2. Did any of those banks bundle your mortgage into a bond fund?

      It may be impossible to sort out who owns your paper at this point.

      1. Don’t even start to think that the banking crisis is solely of the Democrats’ making. The Financial Modernization Act of 1999 is the law that made all of the securitization of worthless loans possible. It was overwhelmingly passed by a Republican majority (362-57 in the House, 90-8 in the Senate) and signed by a Democrat president (Clinton). The men who brokered the deal (from both parties) got lucrative jobs with big banks.

        It was a bill brokered by
        Phil Gramm (R-Tx) who is now a Vice President of UBS Investment Division
        Robert Ruben (Secty of the Treasury under Clinton) later became CEO of Citigroup, and was paid over $50 million in salary and stock.

        If any of you still buy into the Republican/Democrat debate, you are suckers. It is all about the corruption and the money.

  14. “We’re supposed to feel sad that some aspiring actor has to put on a brave face for his kids.”

    Isn’t that his job, acting? I mean, if he can’t act at home, does he really expect to land anything?

  15. There’s a difference between “stuck in limbo yet working to untangle the atrocity that is our financial system” and “stuck in limbo and wanting a free puppy”. Everyone falls on hard times. Its what you do when you get there that reveals character, and I can respect character. I can even be persuaded to lend a hand to someone with character, because I know it will not go to waste. The “free puppy” crowd, however, I have no respect for.

  16. BREAD TRUCK MOTHER ****ER! = classic. Worked in a chorizo factory til I could find my awesome swing-shift file folder factory job while finishing undergrad to I could go to law school. I can’t wait to tell my kids “CHORIZO, MOTHER ****ER!” when they start whining like this. Because those are the only people that whine like that, right? Not grown-ups, but kids. Right?

    1. And the sad part was that I didn’t even get that job! 😀

      I grew up on a dairy farm, have worked manual labor, construction, cheese plant, collections, and cold calling for an insurance company. All of those are things that will convince you to work hard so that you don’t ever have to do them again.

      1. I had a similar experience right out of high school, I worked grave yard in a cheese factory in Utah for a year, that one job was enough to convince me to go to go on with my schooling. I think every one should be forced to work in a cheese factory, it would dramatically increase the college graduation rates.

  17. People like the woman in the article make Mr. Tire Iron and Ms. Nailbat very sad. And I can only think of one way to put a smile back on their faces.

  18. “His attorney, Robert K Brown, has managed to stave off one foreclosure. and overthrew a small 3rd world country. ”

    LMAO here Boss!

  19. Hey, dairyfarming is awesome. It’s just not for everyone, and many years ago it sucked more than it does now. Besides, where’s the icecream gonna come from?

  20. Heh! Larry, your “fisking”is masterful!
    It is sad that these people exist, but it is equally sad that the news media believe that this is a sympathetic human interest story. I am sorry for these people’s unrealistic financial practices, but I am disturbed that the story seemed to want to celebrate or even enable this behavior.
    (I read also that the Feds are reviving Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the zombie institutions that want your brains…)

  21. Thank you Larry for a voice of reason and calm in the wilderness of idiocy out on the internet. Seriously Thank you.

    Larry for Dictator! Hell at least all of the people will be required to have guns right? As Heinlein said: “Armed society is polite society”

    What kind of Ice Cream?

  22. You know, I saw a bunch of those option ARM loans when my wife and I were beginning to look for homes. Even as a complete noob to homeownership, I knew those loans were the dumbest mother-loving things for a person to get. The only way they could possibly make sense would be if you would refinance after 2-3 years into something actually sane, but even that is a pretty significant gamble.

    While there’s been some major paperwork and responsibility fails on the part of the banks and those who securitized and sold the mortgages (to say nothing of the outright lies about the ratings), but the truth of the matter is EVERY person who took out a loan had been given the information about what they were doing. I remember not only scrutinizing our paperwork, but seeing a news report where some mentally deficient person was saying “who reads all that anyway?” The answer to that is the people who read them are the people who get to keep their homes, their credit ratings, and their self respect.

  23. At age 68, the longest that I ever took to pay off a home loan was a bit over three years. Once when I was in my early twenties and was returning to college, I took the hook in my mouth for a twenty-four month used car loan. I quickly realized the stupidity of that. Being that I had the cash in hand, I paid it off in two months (including the prepayment penalty). Full time employment during college and grad-school let me walk away with no student loans.
    And like Correia45, I’ve been willing to suffer through more than a few jobs that might have been considered beneath my education and experience in order to have a consistent income of some sort.
    Bottom line is that I’ve been fortunate to never have had catastrophic health problems or self-induced crippling debt.
    I thank my lucky stars for having not been born as ignorant as the folks quoted in the article.

  24. Larry, if you ever need any Evil Minions for your world takeover, I’d love to put in my application. I swear I’ll mend my liberal ways. Just let me be in charge of dropping idiots like these into a bottomless pit. Or a vat of boiling oil. Or a bottomless pit of boiling oil. Something. I’ll even forgo the free ice cream.

    I can’t really add anything more than what you’ve already said, or what’s already been commented. I kind of wish I was more dishonest, so I could stop paying my mortgage, and live in my house for free.

    1. Actually, the best response I’ve ever heard of to a person who deserved it was during the Ming Dynasty. According to the story, an uncle of the Emperor tried to usurp the throne. After a period in the dungeons to rethink his ways, he promised to support the Emperor. The uncle promptly tried to overthrow the Emperor again. He was made into a copper pot. Yes, he was MADE INTO A COPPER POT.

      IMHO, the only other thing that would match that is making fine bone china from one’s enemies.

  25. Okay, so a few of my favorite lines:

    “Mr Snuggles ran away because of Lynn’s poor budgeting choices”

    “My ideal outcome involves world domination and all you can eat ice cream. ”

    “BREAD TRUCK MOTHER ****ER! ”

    I don’t really want to badmouth people because it seems to come back and bite me in tender areas, but I will say that if you live beyond your means, or make dumb choices, you pay the consequences. Even if it was an accident. Even if you didn’t REALLY mean to. Even if you felt like it was a good idea at the time. The same could be said about suicide (if one was particularly morbid). Does that make it all right?… Probably not. Thanks for having a thought. 🙂

    Great article Larry. As always.

  26. This was perfect. People like these are repulsive -while my wife and I play by the rules, live in a tiny apartment (and plan to move in with relatives as soon as our lease is up) and scrape together every penny we have so we can someday have a reasonable down payment for a home we can actually make the payments on, human ticks like this spend years sucking blood out of the system, living rent free -and somehow have the temerity to whine about how unfair it is their stupidity might someday have consequences.

  27. This was great. I work in a large financial organization, it pays our bills and we have savings. The funny part is, they tried to sell us an ARM and pushed it on a ton of employees, but having worked there for about 11 years, after waiting tables and cold calling restaurants for security systems through college, I know the bank is not out for my best interests. It is a business, all about the stockholders, and they really don’t care if it works out for you or not. They are making a profit. End of story.

    My daddy taught me to never sign my name to anything unless I read it at least twice and understood everything about it. I guess a loan for over $100,000 that they will be responsible for abut 30 years did not count for these people.
    My momma taught me to never take out a pointless loan on my home, because that is where I live. That includes for a business expansion or a new puppy.

    Of course I am also the type of person that would take the very first offer on deal or no deal, so you can take my comment with a grain of salt.

  28. My mom lives in a trailer right now and these guys have the gall to complain about living in a house without paying rent?!

    Also, my version of the bread truck is “SANDWICHES MOTHERF***ER!” xD

  29. I’m all for helping the helpless but the clueless deserve to get eaten by the wolves of this world. To remove the lowest genetic common denominator which the people in the article clearly are.

  30. My current job is completely different than what I’ve spent the past 7 years doing, and being halfway decent at. But it pays the bills. And at the end of the day, that’s what matters.

    “TEMP CONSTRUCTION WORK, MOTHER******!”

  31. This..THIS.. is the writing style that causes me to snap up Larry’s books like some half crazed crack monkey. Not to worry, happy to contribute to your hedonistic, grape peeling ways and out of the breadtruck.

    The responsible adults around here all seem to have their own individual battlecry, so I will add mine… “PIZZA DELIVERY, MOTHERF***ER!”

  32. JANITOR, MOTHERF***ER! is mine. When you’re cleaning up shit (a toilet is such a hard target for some special snowflakes), you’ve hit rock bottom.

    But my bills are paid on time, I’m not in horrendous debt, and I have a roof over my head. Guess I’m living life wrong…

    1. Got some of mine in the grocery store – was floor maintenance (janitor) one summer – toilets are a piece of cake compared to rats/mice crushed by the power jack/fork lift.

  33. But wait, your sympathy should be with the journalist. The journalist is like you, Larry, just a poor schmoe trying to make a living by TELLING STORIES. And when you tell a story, you have to appeal to your AUDIENCE… you know that, of all people, you business-savvy writing machine.

    Now, I am going to pitch you two stories. I want to write my story and get it published in the mainstream media. You, as my agent, tell me which one I should write.

    “Doofuses get in over their head, then try to avoid personal responsibility, consuming court resources in the process and driving up everyone else’s mortgage rates.”

    “Evil banks exploit good people. Courts to the rescue!”

    Come on, you gotta feel for a brother writer.

    🙂

    1. Except that, of course, Larry’s story is more entertaining than the original, so clearly, the

      “Doofuses get in over their head, then try to avoid personal responsibility, consuming court resources in the process and driving up everyone else’s mortgage rates.”

      story is the better one. =)

  34. Oh, for f*ck’s sake.

    *facepalm*

    This sort of crap is why I’m almost tempted to chuck everything and just become another deadbeat. I mean, I’m renting a crappy apartment while my tax money is going to bail out people like the Segals and that idiot Lynn person who bought McMansions they couldn’t afford.

    And my tax money got to subsidize new car purchases last year for people who could actually afford to BUY new cars, as part of “Cash for Clunkers,” while I continue to make do with my own high-mileage, nine-year-old clunker. And thanks to “Cash for Clunkers,” even used cars are commanding premium prices these days…and thanks to idiots like the Segals and Lynn, it’s harder and harder for those of us why pay our own way in life to get credit and financing to trade up.

    Now excuse me. I’ve got to go write another check to Firestone’s credit-card payment bureau for the last round of repairs to my increasingly elderly Intrepid. And utter a few more curses where I’m not taking up Larry’s precious bandwith.

    Oh, and Larry? I think your “brother writer” there is writing Horror-Fantasy, or just Horror. Or at least that’s what it looks like from my perspective, because reading this whole thread just scares the hell out of me for what it says about our country.

  35. These idjits are one of the reasons we’re in the state we are… they categorically refuse to accept responsibility for their OWN STUPID ACTIONS!!! sigh…

  36. I’m afraid I don’t get a cool battlecry, since I’m working a sweet job to pay my way through college. I’m almost jealous…..almost.

    I’ve got an idea for a new savings program for idiots. I’ll give you all my money, then you give me all of yours. Anyone interested? lol

    I seem to remember something similar from my US history class. When people we’re moving out west, the banks would sell them land for a downpayment and regular payments for a % of what the land was worth. Then as the farmers began improving the land the banks raised the payments accordingly, forcing most of the farmers into bankrupty. I might be wrong since I took that class years ago, but I’m pretty sure that ended up with the farmers in armed revolt.
    Pleasant thought, isn’t it.

    1. “Then as the farmers began improving the land the banks raised the payments accordingly, forcing most of the farmers into bankrupty.”

      So that’s where the people who calculate my property taxes got the idea.

  37. This made me laugh, i posted this on my facebook, as a link with attribution, if you want me to edit/remove it please let me know.

    Thanks.
    Brad

    1. Been there too – that was my other summer job, laying asphalt for parking lots – The summer of over 40 consecutive 105+ degree days in Austin was the only summer I have ever really had a tan.

  38. OPEN PIT GOLD MINE IN THE HIGH NEVADA SUMMER, MOTHER-F***ER!

    You know the kind: the hole in the ground filled with dirt that may yield 10g Au per ton, so no hopes of a lucky nugget. Just dig where the geologists say and move the dirt around. And you have to be SKILLED at digging to get that job.

  39. INSTALLING COPPER ROOFS IN AUSTIN TEXAS IN THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER, MF’r!!
    (Hey that’s actually kind of cathartic) 🙂

  40. Omg, can’t breath, so ducking funny. I’m with you 100 percent man – buy something you can’t afford and them cry? Bite me!

  41. I am so tired of this. I don’t understand the how the author of this article could be so sympathetic to a bunch of low-life parasites. This just highlights the reason the economy tanked. Idiots giving out loans to idiots. The most disturbing thing, and Mr. Correia I think you state it quite well, is that these individuals could get themselves out of the hole they have dug. Nothing wrong with working at a lower paying job. You have to do whatever it takes to make sure you and your family are happy and healthy. Get a job at the local fast food place and say with pride. “WOULD YOU LIKE FRIES WITH THAT?”. When you make choices to not improve your lot in life then you create a miasma of hopelessness that then makes your life too hard. Enough whining! Get up find any job and adult up! These low-lives sicken me and I’m a Democrat!

  42. Thanks for saying what a lot of us were thinking, that article fired me up as well. What drives me nuts is that if their adjustable rate mortgages ended up working in their favor it’s not like they would spread the wealth to me with my 30-year fixed mortgage. Yet, I am expected to directly and indirectly subsidize them because I made the fiscally conservative choice of not gambling when I couldn’t afford it. Everyone knows that when you gamble you collect when you win and pay when you lose. If there was no risk of losing with a variable rate mortgage we would all have a variable rate mortgages! Instead these people sit in the banks house and make banks pay legal fees to get their property back. Anyone who wants to defend these low lives should know two very important things. First, banks make things harder and more expensive for the rest of us when you default on your loans (that is right you’re not just ripping off the bank you are ripping off the regular person). Second, when those houses don’t hit the market immediately because of “squatters” it artificially drives up home prices (once again you aren’t ripping off the bank you are ripping off the regular person). If you really feel bad for these people… offer to let them live in your basement. That way they can stop stealing from the economy and we can work on fixing the other thieves, the banks.

  43. “PHONE TECH SUPPORT MOTHERF***ER!”

    Okay, physically that’s not anywhere near as bad as some of the others posted here, but dealing with some twit who’s calling to bitch that his satellite TV isn’t working when he is literally in a hurricane would try the patience of Mother Theresa herself. And that wasn’t the worst, by far.

    “Is your satellite dish still attached?”

    I’d also claim “used car sales”, but I take pride in the fact that I was no good at it.

    As Wes S. pointed out, my tax money got to subsidize new car purchases last year for people who could actually afford to buy new cars, while I continue to make do with my 200,000+ mile 17 year old car. WTF?

    Heck, I only bought a house because the mortgage payments were less than what I was paying in rent for a 2 bedroom apartment (and 1BR apts in this town run the same as a 2BR, because it’s a college town). I actually came out ahead, even when you consider repair and maintenance costs and the extra gas due to living farther from where I work. But I still insisted on a fixed rate, because (barring what people like Tim Covington did) taking an ARM is about the stupidest thing financially someone could do. And if I hadn’t gotten a loan I could manage for a house I could afford, I wouldn’t have done it.

    You know, like an adult.

  44. Haven’t bought a house yet, but man oh man am I going to be paranoid about it.

    Got screwed on the cars I bought, but I didn’t know what I was reading, and was a pushover at the time. (20-ish % and way over blue book value.)

    Refinanced them to get the interest to ~ 4% and the payments to something reasonable, instead of over half my paycheck, and learned from it. Could have… I’m not really sure, arranged to have them dissappear and get the insurance to write it off, but I’m not that good of a liar, and I already know I hate jail.

    Reading about these retards, and their sense of entitlement makes me understand why there used to be debtor’s prison. These people belong in it.

    How many pieces of institutional furniture do you have to make to pay off a house?

  45. Big Grin,

    Couple of things, the last time this went around, (Our friend Jimmy…) every thing in my life tanked. My family offered me my Uncles dairy farm, but I went in to the army instead, less work (Grin) so mine is , “SOULESS KILLER (or pushup king), MOTHERF***ER!”

    Regards,
    Kevin

  46. At one point in my life I’d racked up about 16,000 in credit card debt. I was pretty stupid in my 20’s. But I wised up. Every spare dime I made went into paying it off. When my truck died I bought a $300 ’66 Fairlane and drove that til I got the cards paid off. It had no heat and in the winter if I was driving further than 20 miles I brought a blanket to put over my legs and an Ice scraper to scape off the inside of the windshield as i drove. The transmission was down to just 2nd and 3rd gear which made hill starts an interesting proposition.By the time I hit 32 I was out of debt except for my mortgage (which I never missed a payment on). Since then I’ve never carried a balance on a card and I have a much nicer vehicle (paid off also).

    Unfortunately, I got laid off 19 months ago and have applied for any job I could find – plumbers helper, security guard, counter help at a hardware store in addition to applying for CAD drafting jobs since that was what I did for 26 years. Still no joy on anything so far but I’ve never missed or been late on a bill and cleaned out my 401k and paid off my house so that no matter what I at least have a roof over my head. I’ve managed to get my regular bills down to about $600 a month and so far my savings will probably last me another 4 months or so. At that point I’ll figure something out.

    The point is I’ve done everything I can to do right and when I read about Asshats like this part of me wonders if I’m just being a sucker. Then the grown-up part of me smacks that other part around and tells it to shut the hell up ! I guess those folks never listen or don’t have a grown-up inside.

  47. Oh yeah, almost forgot – PALLET SCRAPER MOTHERF**KER

    Worked one summer at a chicken plant. My job was to scrape the chicken crap off the pallets that the coops were loaded on after the trucks delivered their chickens to the plant. It was an outside job in 100 degree heat. if I was lucky the pallets had been sitting out for awhile and the crap was nice and dry. Then all you had to worry about was feathers and flaky bits sticking to your sweat. But if it was fairly fresh ? Oh man, I never knew crap could look or smell that bad.

  48. “BREAD TRUCK MOTHER ****ER! ”

    BAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Is it wrong that I found such a pathetically sad article on the current state of dumbasses in this country so frickin’ HILARIOUS?

    Larry, the way you injected your common sense into that offensive article was golden!

    Thanks!

      1. Warehouse Temp Worker (not a lot of $, but actually kinda fun), Gas Station Clerk, and Grocery Store Bagboy, before I joined the Army.

  49. Unfortunately. When you say that an ARM loan is for those who intend to refi within a that time. Thats EXACTLY what we were advised to do. Unfortunately we bought out house at The TOP (like 6 months before the crash) and nobody would refinance us including our original lender. 5 years later (after paying off all the damnable interest) Wife decides she doesnt want to be a home owner nor married to me. Wife and I were scraping buy but she decided she really did mind being poor and did mind having to do actual house work along with the jobs we both held down she also decided that us being poor was my fault. So I became a bad country song.

    So now My house in the meantime has lost about 50k dollars worth of value. And I cant quite make payments on my own without bread and water diet. (not that i couldnt use such) So I have ZERO option other than to try to get refied for this and moving home at age 32 (after getting kicked out at 15 from my folks house and kicked out of the Army at 21 for busted up knees that should have kept me out to begin with)ain’t an option. And Losing my house means that I also lose my job as my job depends on my credit rating as much as my ability to do my job. My dog and me get to sit and sweat it out trying to see if we can keep our house. Nominaly I’m with you guys but asking for help when you really do need it aint a horrible thing.

    1. I don’t think that anyone is saying not to ask for help. Folks really do understand that you are sweating it out, and I don’t detect a lot of whining in your post! It’s a stark contrast to the article.

      My pet peeve is the folks that want to take more of our earnings in the form of taxes and “fees” just to support entitlements. I have sympathy for someone with job trouble, but not for someone who chooses to not work and live off of the dole when they *could* work. For me college (including two graduate degrees) meant living at home (for 4 years) and living in what would have to have been upgraded to qualify as a slum (5 years) at wages of $5,000-$12,000 a year. I was married for the last 2 years of schooling and we got by on about $800 a month by clipping coupons, buying scratch-and-dent and carpooling. My wife and I have both worked full time and still managed to raise kids to college age.

  50. As a Canadian who admires the great thinkers, writers, and leaders of the United States (Washington, Lincoln, Adams, Franklin, Grant, Jefferson, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Mellville etc.) I have to ask the question:

    What happened to America?

    It was tremendous work ethic, ingenuity, and intelectual bravery that built a great nation. Where have these gone?

  51. Deadbeat debt collector MOTHERF***ER!

    That’s right, I collected from people who wrote bum checks at bars, and pizza places.
    I usually got half. Plus I had the satisfaction of having full access to credit bureau and police records.

    Now they have electronic clearing, and I don’t have job satisfaction anymore.

    Could we perhaps sell deadbeat home buyers’ organs on the black market?

Leave a Reply to Vaarok Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *